Indigo Children: Fact or Fiction?

Audiences interrupt my talks with vigorous applause when I suggest that using labels like “Indigo” to categorize today’s children causes more harm than good. And this happens almost everywhere I travel. Because the applause is getting steadily louder, I feel compelled to speak on this issue.

The new children have been variously described of late as Indigos (because of the supposed color of their auras), Star Kids (because of their purported origination from other worlds), Crystals (because some say they are highly developed), and so forth. None of these claims hold up to the degree that they are made when subjected to objective research, whether via scientific observation or by the study of mystical/esoteric traditions or through a summary of visionary revelations.
Professionals in the field of child development and education, parents, even the kids themselves, are having problems with the idea that certain character traits are the sole province of special youngsters when, in fact, the vast majority of today’s children match those same traits – without evidencing anything like a purple aura, or being a hybrid from another planet, or possessing “god-like” wisdom. Being supersensitive, confident, highly intelligent, unusually creative, nonconformist, extraordinarily psychic and spiritually aware, impatient, empathic, able to heal or aid others in significant ways, abstracting at young ages, spatial learners, great at problem-solving yet difficult to parent or educate – these characteristics and many more are typical to the broad span of today’s youth worldwide and has been since around 1982.

Present-day school systems were not designed to educate these children, nor are teachers prepared to handle their “differences.” Chief among these “differences” is the surprising array of what some people call “learning disorders.” The therapeutic crowd, having finally caught on that labels don’t work, simply refers to such youngsters as “quirky kids” with “quirks.” Annimac (an Australian life coach and futurist) noted that these children actually “multi-code” from “multi-channels.” The kids themselves just laugh and say: “We’re reordered, not disordered.”

The labeling fad so popular now began in the late seventies when several psychics started talking about the numbers of children they saw who had purple auras. They named them “Indigos.” This was followed in 1999 by the success of Lee Carroll’s and Jan Tober’s book, The Indigo Children: The New Kids Have Arrived (Hay House, Carlsbad, CA). Their success spawned a cottage-industry of books, tapes, toys, clothes, and gadgets, which ballooned out-of-portion by media hype used to promote the idea of “world indigo day” and “indigo revolution” so indigo films would sell. Currently, it is almost impossible to get a book published about the uniqueness of our newest generation without the word “indigo” in the title. This happened to me with my book Beyond the Indigo Children (Inner Traditions/Bear, Rochester, VT), and with Edgar Cayce on the Indigo Children by Peggy Day and Susan Gale – when it is well-known that Cayce never said a thing about “indigos.”

I believe that most of the people who started this craze meant well. They were psychically gifted people who noticed something unusual about the children around them and claimed that what they were seeing was widespread. What was widespread were the traits and characteristics they saw, not the aura color of indigo. The result was an incomplete model that confuses even the most sincere.

Unfortunately, well meaning is not enough to validate observations, especially one as important as what I suspect is happening here – a quantum leap in the evolution of the human species. More research is needed – much more. Terming the latest in scientific findings as proof that “Indigos” have arrived is an exaggeration of truth, not an honoring of it. What served initially to alert the general population about the very real fact that today’s children are indeed different, is now a hindrance. This is why so many audiences are applauding when I invite them to drop the labels and just call our children “new” because they are.

Actually, Edgar Cayce’s readings are a good place to start a brief exploration of esoteric wisdoms. In one reading, for instance, he targeted the years 1998 to 2010 as the period when the Fifth Root Race, our next evolutionary advancement as a species, would be fully underway. Mystical traditions (loosely referred to as “mystery school teachings”), mention the altering of the lifestream whereby new “waves” of souls can come forth. The term “root race” is an old one, going back to ancient Vedic teachings, and refers to species-wide, evolutionary mutations, our gene pool as humans. . . not to genetic subgroups. These traditions have it that there are seven major root races in God’s Plan to perfect human form on Earth, and that each advancement occurs during major cyclic changes in the earthplane. The Fifth Root Race, the one over-spreading the globe now, is associated with the vibratory frequency of blue (in these teachings, indigo is associated with the Sixth Root Race).

Each calendar-keeping measure or legendary prediction adhered to by native peoples, including Mayan Calendar interpretations, indicates that the Fifth World (fifth cosmic cycle) is well underway and that the human species not only is moving into its fifth “wave” of existence – but is accelerating or ascending into higher and more refined aspects of this wave. According to the research I have done, Fifth Root Race types of people started showing up during the time of Jesus (a few rare souls), were more numerous with each historical renaissance, came in greater numbers from the mid-1800s through 1920 or so, then pushed forward rather noticeably between the 1960s and 1970s. Yet it wasn’t until around 1982 that the flood-tide of today began (a major cycle in fulfillment) True Indigos or Sixth Root Race types piggy-backed the Blues in the 1800s and have been entering the earthplane ever since – in enough numbers to spice the mix – but not in the massive numbers of births that some people claim (give them another couple hundred years or so).

We are told that there have always been a scattering of advanced beings alive on Earth who, like “spark-plugs,” either uplifted humankind or demonstrated new ideas of what is possible. In that sense, all seven root races, perhaps others besides, have intermingled the cyclic time periods of great change on Earth. Each root race, as tradition has it, changes the body type, intelligence level, spiritual awareness, and creative capacity present in the human family. And it’s happening now. Our new children, irrespective of aura colors or what they seem representative of, are challenging us in ways we’ve never been challenged before.

I invite all of you to make room for this notion in your mind and in your life, at least to the extent that you free our children from the exclusivity of the categories they have been boxed into. Toss the labels. Our kids don’t need them. What they need are guidance, discipline, lots of love, and parents wise enough to listen before assuming anything

P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D. is one of the original researchers in the field of near-death studies, having begun her work in 1978. To date, she has published seven books on her findings and countless papers and articles. Throughout her work, she noticed a similarity between children who were near-death experiencers and children who were simply born that way – with the same differences and enhancements that near-death kids displayed after their episode. She wrote Beyond the Indigo Children: The New Children and the Coming of the Fifth World to pass on what she discovered. The addendum to the book is located on http://www.pmhatwater.com.

1 Comment

I am convinced that I am an Indigo Adult. Please contact for details. I have two children. My daughter is 24 and my son is 12. Whereas, my daughter has definite signs of being an Indigo child, my son is the one that shows many clear signs from his aura on down the line. He has a golden glow. What does that mean? I have one picture in particular that clearly shows the golden glow. Not purple as many have reported. I would love to talk to someone about this as I’ve been through quite a journey that finally led me to here. Thank You.